Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Lively’s Imagined Coalition With Progressives

The utterly unhinged Scott Lively is ready to ditch the Republican party and form a new coalition, which he amusingly imagines will include “grassroots progressives” that usually vote Democratic. Specifically, he thinks they can win over ethnic minorities and the working poor by pushing for “Biblical values.” It’s a pretty funny screed.

First of all lets strip down the GOP to its core principles: biblical values. This is where it started as an alternative to the pro-slavery Whig and Democrat Parties, and what has defined the appeal of its best leaders, the last of whom was, of course, Ronald Reagan.

Uh, no. The “biblical values” were all on the side of slavery. The secession declarations of nearly all the Confederate states cited the Bible and Christian values in defense of both slavery and secession. Just like today’s religious right, they claimed fealty to the higher law of God and not to the Constitution. There isn’t a single verse in the Bible in opposition to slavery, and many that not only justify it but command it directly.

Of course we want to keep the pro-life and pro-family wing, which thankfully constitutes the overwhelming majority of the GOP grass roots activists.

We also want to keep the constitutional and limited government factions, and the Tea Parties, since their philosophies are rooted in the Constitution, which is in turn rooted in the Bible (even if some of these allies have forgotten this fact).

So you should be able to point to specific provisions in the Constitution and then to their analogs in the Bible, right? Where is separation of powers in the Bible? Or freedom of speech? And why didn’t a single person involved in the writing of the Constitution point to the Bible as a model for the Constitution, while they did mention Greek and Roman and Enlightenment philosophers to do so?

This leads me to a constituency I think we don’t have but should add: ethnic minorities and the working poor. Now I’m no socialist, and I recognize that the entitlement system in its current state is one of the most shameful results of Marxist ideology in the Democratic Party, but there is a certain amount of truth in the arguments of the “social justice” crowd. I live in the inner city as a missionary and I see it first hand.

I say we should start working to rescue the “social justice” movement from the Marxists and rebuild it on a Christian foundation. We should use our vastly superior skills at managing money, and our philosophy of “teaching how to fish “ (instead of “giving away the fish”) to systematically turn the dependent class into self-sufficient citizens (to the fullest extent possible). At the same time reducing the costs of the programs and lowering taxes accordingly. A Christian society has a duty to help the poor, and we can meet that duty much better and cheaper than the Marxists can.

Why will ethnic minorities join us in the first place, before we’ve been able to prove ourselves champions of true social justice? We will make a simple appeal to the thing we most share in common. “Our Bond Is Family!” There’s our pitch and strategy in bumper-sticker simplicity. The typical African American or Hispanic person is generally more Christian and pro-family than the average American (as are the Russian, Eastern European, East Indian, African and Asian immigrants). RINO Republicans could never build a bridge to these minorities because they don’t share these values. But we can and should.

He’s actually half-way to pitching one possible way for the GOP to rejuvenate itself: Stop preaching an anti-immigrant and anti-poor message, make some basic concessions on the social safety net (e.g. like go back to pitching what Republicans used to pitch under Reagan), and focus on the goddy issues. They’d still continue to hemmhorage women, but he’s right that they could probably reclaim a lot of their share of racial minorities if they dropped the anti-immigrant thing and started treating the poor with some basic respect.

Of course, he can’t go whole hog, his idea is basically, “Instead of directly insulting the poor, we should be superficially nice to them while pushing policies that merely imply they are shiftless lazy moochers.” And anyway, although the GOP could get viable this way, I don’t really want to see it.

If we tell christian Blacks and catholic Hispanics that god demands they vote against gays and abortion at all costs, they will become republicans.

Also

he typical African American or Hispanic person is generally more Christian and pro-family than the average American (as are the Russian, Eastern European, East Indian, African and Asian immigrants)

I’ll take him at his word relating to African Americans and Hispanics in the US, but I don’t really know that its true.

However, I spent 6 months in Russia doing study abroad, the closest I came to organized religion was touring multi-century old churches that are widely recognized as classic works of architecture and art, and attending a pagan summer solstice festival. I hardly ever heard any reference to people actually attending church, although the orthodox Church was present.

A quick look at wiki confirms this. Weekly church attendance in Russia is 3-4%. Compared to ~40% in the US.

FYI the midsummer festival was amazing, it was way out in the woods, but more than 10,000 people were there. Although, to be fair, that probably had as much to do with the fact that the “religious rites” included lots of drinking and jumping over fires, followed by night time swimming than any actual religious beliefs.

Although, to be fair, that probably had as much to do with the fact that the “religious rites” included lots of drinking and jumping over fires, followed by night time swimming than any actual religious beliefs.

What makes you think those two are mutually exclusive?

Also, if the event was as remote as you imply, then it would probably take more than a wild party to get a large number of people out there. A wild party within a particular community at least…

Somehow I doubt he’ll make much progress as long as he keeps contrasting African Americans and Hispanic people with Americans. Not “white Americans ” or even “traditional Americans “. Just Americans. You know REAL Americans. Not those dark skinned people.

“Of course we want to keep the pro-life and pro-family wing, which thankfully constitutes the overwhelming majority of the GOP grass roots activists.

We also want to keep the constitutional and limited government factions, and the Tea Parties, since their philosophies are rooted in the Constitution, which is in turn rooted in the Bible (even if some of these allies have forgotten this fact).”

IOW, the same people that are there now, the Teabagofascists having chased the sane, reasonable people out of the KKKlaven.

I can see them recruiting sortabrowns by offering them membership in the Nuevo KKK.

He’s not really talking about allying with progressives is he? There’s nothing in there about reaching out to people with progressive political views, just a bunch of claims that minorities who vote Democratic are not really progressive and could be won to the Republicans if they tone down the race baiting.

I say we should start working to rescue the “social justice” movement from the Marxists and rebuild it on a Christian foundation.

Marxists? Like the ‘communists’ these various GOP supporters like to go on about pretty much don’t exist in the U.S. It’s a useless shorthand as these particular ideologies have changed over time and are usually better labeled with something else.

I’m not sure I understand what Lively thinks progressives object to in the GOP platform, but he seems to be suggesting they keep doing more or less the same regressive bullshit but somehow it will be more appealing.

We should use our vastly superior skills at managing money, and our philosophy of “teaching how to fish “ (instead of “giving away the fish”) to systematically turn the dependent class into self-sufficient citizens (to the fullest extent possible).

But good luck trying to afford fishing poles, poor people!

And don’t be surprised that even when you do manage to get access to a pond (no guarantees there, either), the poor people’s pond doesn’t have much fish in it — the fish have all been caught to stock the rich people’s pond.

What the Clown Party doesn’t seem to realize is that the “progressive movement” is all about teaching people how to fish. And making sure that everyone who needs one has a fishing pole. And making sure that they have a clean, well-stocked pond to fish from.

He’s not really talking about allying with progressives is he? There’s nothing in there about reaching out to people with progressive political views, just a bunch of claims that minorities who vote Democratic are not really progressive and could be won to the Republicans if they tone down the race baiting.

It’s a convenient shorthand. It plays badly in the media if you go off on a rant about n—ers and sp–ks, but refer to them as “progressives” or “democrats” instead, and you can spew all the venom and hate that you want to.

Lively’s not really calling for any sort of outreach. He wants to do what Republicans have already been doing for a few cycles – walk around saying “Blacks and Hispanics should vote for conservatives” until it becomes true by sheer force of will. He certainly isn’t interested in dropping the scapegoating of illegals – he’s quite specific in the post that he only wants “legal citizens.”

On a similar note, his plan to get the working poor seems to be to tell people “Get a job!” until they say, “Yes! I will go out and get one of the many, many jobs for which I am qualified and that will pay enough to support my family!” Apparently, it’s just that easy. About the only real concession Lively makes is that he doesn’t think Republicans should support big business anymore (fat chance of that), but it’s mainly because of those businesses embracing the “homosexual agenda.”

If we craft an appeal based on our common preference for the “natural” over the “artificial,” and frame this as a logical basis for deciding social policy in every area, we suddenly have a powerful unifying theme for our entire slate that could win every intellectually honest environmentalist to our side: the natural value of life vs the unnatural termination of unborn babies, natural marriage vs. un-natural homosexual unions, God-given liberty vs. man-made Statism, commerce among real persons vs. that with artificial corporate “persons,” natural foods vs. genetic experiments, a return to family farms and rejection of agri-business, a return to natural remedies and rejection of Big Pharma, etc..

His whole strategy seems to be to find some excuse to weave abortion and gays into every single issue. Social conservatives really do have one-track minds.

I’ll take him at his word relating to African Americans and Hispanics in the US, but I don’t really know that its true.

The “more pro-family” part is harder to nail down, because WTF does that even mean (when I parse those words in English, it seems to me that marriage equality is pro-family, but then again maybe it’s like “inflammable” — “‘Inflammable’ means ‘flammable’? What a country!”), but as to the “more Christian” part, yeah, he’s correct: By most measures, African Americans are the most religious demographic in the US, and Hispanics are not far behind. How to interpret that is very much open to debate, but the demographic data is pretty clear.

As I hinted at in my comment #2, there is a core of truth in Lively’s point: There are a lot of people who would be receptive to the Republicans’ animosity towards gays and desire to control women’s uteruses, who are nevertheless being turned off by their strong anti-immigrant and anti-poor stance, and the barely-veiled racism. And no small number of those people are African-American and Hispanic. (It’s a lot easier to look past the racism and embrace the homophobia if the racism isn’t specifically directed at you, I guess…)

In order to buy the message of this sort of screed, you have to read it in the spirit that produced it. Certain things are just givens, that’s all; like
1) The Constitution is based on the bible,
2) The right is “vastly superior” in matters of money management
3) Anyone who wants to run “entitlements” differently than on our “Christian” principles is a damn commie.
And so forth. All this is like holy writ, and is to be treated the same; you simply don’t question the premises (unless you’re a dirty atheist commie). Then everything falls into place.

Also, if the event was as remote as you imply, then it would probably take more than a wild party to get a large number of people out there. A wild party within a particular community at least…

It was, give or take, 2.5 hours highway driving out of St. Petersburg, where I was studying. It seemed most people drove out there and camped for the night. So remote, but not any more remote than say, a lot of big concert festivals.

I’m sure paganism had plenty of drawbacks in any culture it was dominant, but I find it much easier to get behind religions whose primary celebrations include drunken revelry rather than moralizing nonsense.

Likewise, I find it much harder to be bothered by superstitious beliefs that lead to celebration than those that try to constrain other people’s lives.

But then, I have Russian/Nordic/Baltic family roots, so so maybe it’s in my upbringing a bit.

Hey, wait a minute! Isn’t there that loaves ‘n fishes story in the NT? I thought giving away the fish was the Christian thing to do. Apparently I just don’t understand the inner complexities of Christian philosophy.

Uh, no. The “biblical values” were all on the side of slavery. The secession declarations of nearly all the Confederate states cited the Bible and Christian values in defense of both slavery and secession. Just like today’s religious right, they claimed fealty to the higher law of God and not to the Constitution. There isn’t a single verse in the Bible in opposition to slavery, and many that not only justify it but command it directly.

My understanding of the history was that many abolitionists were, in fact, motivated by religious beliefs, particularly, the quakers and some evangelicals of the time.

First of all lets strip down the GOP to its core principles: biblical values. This is where it started as an alternative to the pro-slavery Whig and Democrat Parties, and what has defined the appeal of its best leaders, the last of whom was, of course, Ronald Reagan.

Jimmy Carter was a much more religious man than Reagan ever even dreamed of.

It was actually seven comments in 14 minutes–now that’s truly, truly, um, actually it’s a little less than abundantly clear to me (and most other folks, I think) to give a fuck if someone posts that often–unless of course their comments are fucking loony. Icthyic’s comments are a lot of things, depending on the subject of the thread but, “fucking loony” is not the first thing I think of.

dan4 has, otoh, demonstrated his need to take a “chill pill” from time to time.